In one corner we have Dan Slott, who thinks that typing insults and using all-caps gives his assertions more validity. In the other we have a comic fan who is willing to debate the issues and stay on point. Is it any wonder why Dan Slott only insults “conservative bloggers” from a distance?

There’s an old saying that goes something like this: “He who thinks one man can’t be effective has never slept in bed with a mosquito.” And so, it is with that mentality that I blog away, whether it’s something as important as exposing the truth behind North Korean gulags or the small stuff like Dan Slott’s treatment of American icons like Spider-Man.

Dan Slott has referred to me multiple times in his Twitter feed, although never by name. It’s always been, pejoratively, “conservative blogger.” And yesterday, after pointing out that everyone but Dan Slott knows Superior Spider-Man is inferior to Amazing Spider-Man, he upped the ante with an extended rant — again not tagging me in the tweet or even linking back to the original post.

Yes, according to Dan, I am an “idiot.” If that’s the case, why would he go off on such a diatribe? And why would he shy away from exposing me as an idiot for all to see on my very own blog? Nothing would be sweeter than to once-and-for-all put that ‘idiot conservative blogger’ in his place, right?

So now, I will deconstruct Dan’s drivel for all the world to see — and invite him to exchange in a lively debate in the comments section, where he can pummel me to the ground like Doc Ock in command of Peter’s body.

Dear Conservative Blogger who was upset that Peter Parker/Spider-Man
saved North Korean soldiers instead of LEAVING THEM TO DIE– BECAUSE
HE REVERED ALL LIFE…

False. As I discussed before, the reason why I was upset was that with 6 billion lives on the line, Dan Slott’s Peter Parker took precious time — when every second counted — to lecture his teammates about the sanctity of North Korea’s gulag overseers. Yes, that same North Korean regime that is now threatening to nuke the United States.

My point was that Spider-Man enters war zones, and then refuses to act like a solider because the truth is, sometimes you have to take a life in order to save a life. Or in Spider-Man’s case, six billion. That is real life. That is what law enforcement agencies and soldiers must deal with every day. And that is the kind of moral conundrum that would make for an interesting Spider-Man story, instead of the half-baked ideas Dan Slott dishes out on a regular basis.

Dear Same-Conservative-Blogger who is NOW upset that Otto
Octavius/Spider-Man took out a crazed gunman who killed over 30 people
in a shooting INSTEAD of letting the police cart him away to prison–
BECAUSE Otto thought that man (even though helpless at the time)
deserved to die, might later get out, and kill again…

False. Again, there is a difference between a murderer on the streets of New York — who is due his day in court by a trial of his peers — and the combatant on a battlefield, who does not have the same constitutional rights granted to Americans. Now that it’s obvious that Dan Slott doesn’t know the difference between the two, we can better understand why Marvel spent time sending Captain America after the Tea Party instead of Taliban head-choppers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

You are an IDIOT.

No, Dan — you appear to be the one without the intellectual chops, as has been demonstrated above. I have calmly shown how the only way you appear remotely intelligent is by misrepresenting what I say on a platform where your drones can not compare our arguments side by side. To top it all off, the only way I know you’re talking about me is because those very same drones are Googling my work, which shows up in my Wordress statistics when they finally land on the site.

I’m not saying that BECAUSE you are a Conservative Blogger.

Everyone is entitled to their own political beliefs.

I’m saying that BECAUSE you, specifically– independent of the fact
you’re a Conservative Blogger– ARE an idiot.

When someone’s beliefs/ideologies/presuppositions BLIND them to their
own hypocrisies– WHEREVER those beliefs/ideologies/presuppositions
lie– CONSERVATIVE, LIBERAL, or WHAT-HAVE-YOU– THOSE PEOPLE (like
yourself) ARE COMPLETE AND UTTER IDIOTS.

Congratulations.

It says something about a guy who thinks because he writes the word ‘idiot’ multiple times and abuses the Caps Lock key that what he’s saying must be true.

You are NOT a rational, thinking human being. You’re an idiot who’s
had their brain removed and filled with the
pap/preconceived-notions/rhetoric/propaganda/talking-points of others.

There is no talking, conversing, or reasoning with you. Enjoy your
idiocy by yourself and those stupid enough to endure it, you brain
dead ideologue.

Again, Dan’s argument boils down to: “idiot-idiot-idiot-idiot-stupid-brain dead.” And yet, I’m supposedly the one who is “not rational”? Good one, Dan.

But it isn’t until the end that we see what really gets Dan’s goat:

And, BTW, it DOESN’T matter how many copies of SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN are
on the racks of your Barnes & Noble in Lynchburg, Virginia. The book
is doing PHENOMENALLY well.

How does one define “phenomenally well”? (I’m sorry if I don’t use all-caps like Dan. I understand that typing in big letters doesn’t magically give my point more validity.) If we’re talking about the tens-of-thousands of readers like me, who flip through Marvel comics these days only to put them back on the shelf to buy frozen yogurt, then I wouldn’t call that phenomenal. I still buy comics — just rarely anything Marvel.

It works like this: It’s a TOP 10 BOOK– one of Marvel’s BEST
performing titles– hell, one of the BEST performing titles in the
ENTIRE AMERICAN MARKET! Google the sales. THEN, once you see how it’s
ACTUALLY doing nationwide, factor THIS in: EVERY SINGLE ISSUE HAS SOLD
OUT ON THE DISTRIBUTOR LEVEL AND GONE BACK FOR MULTIPLE PRINTINGS– ON
TOP OF THOSE NUMBERS!

What does THAT mean? That means that LOTS of readers ACROSS the
country are buying enough copies that enough retailers are SELLING OUT
and having to place REORDERS– and that those REORDERS are eating
through whatever stock Diamond has. Not all books sell out. SUPERIOR
SPIDER-MAN does. So even though you’d like to paint its sales as “not
superior,” you would be DEMONSTRATIVELY WRONG. IN A VERY EASY TO PROVE
WAY.

Not once in my post did I make an argument for sales of Superior Spider-Man on a national or even a regional level. In fact, 95 percent of my post was about how Slott misses the boat when it comes to telling a compelling story. It has almost nothing to do with sales, except for one sentence about sales in Lynchburg, Va., specifically. Could I have talked about the comic shops in and around Washington, DC — where I actually live? Yes. Could I have talked about The Main Event’s take down of Slott and his on-the-ground experience with large comic shops in Philly? Yes. But I didn’t do that.

Congratulations Dan, for inventing a case I never made about sales and then putting me in my place for it. Here’s what I said:

The bottom line is this: After six issues of the Superior Spider-Man, it is more apparent than ever that the decision to kill off The Amazing Spider-Man in the manner Mr. Slott did was not worth the cost in good will towards Marvel. For every interesting morsel readers are given to chew on, there are mouthfuls of spoiled stale ideas that remind them why “Superior” is vastly inferior to its predecessor.

This morning, a Twitter follower read my post and told me to check out Marvel’s press release for Superior Spider-Man #9. It reads in part: “The hottest comic in comics comes to a turning point that will get you angrier than you were after Spidey #700!” (emphasis added).

Again, Dan Slott’s entire run is fueled on anger. It seems as though everything Marvel has done with Spider-Man over the past handful of years has been predicated on channeling anger to motivate people instead of love for one of the greatest comic book characters ever. And that’s what’s so sad, because it doesn’t have to be that way.

It’s okay to have your own opinions. It’s not okay to make up your own
“facts.” Especially when you’re drawing gross assumptions from small
and biased samplings.

This is coming from a guy who took me to task on a sales argument I never made in the blog post he was referencing.

Also, idiot, no rape took place in the pages of Superior Spider-Man.
And the OTHER idiot who lead you to believe that– the guy who writes
Aunt May fan-fic porn, commissions naked pictures of MaryJane Watson
art from people on DeviantArt, and makes bogus sales charts for
Amazing Spider-Man while purposefully leaving off the TOP THIRD of all
the (inaccurate) data he can find? The SAME idiot who created the
#SuperiorSpiderRapist hash tag? The SAME idiot who tweeted well into
the triple digits how MJ would DEFINITELY be raped in the pages of the
book? Even THAT idiot came out and admitted that he was WRONG and that
no physical rape took place. So congrats on keeping THAT
misinformation flowing, you idiot.

Aaaaand rant over. 😀

Notice how Dan Slott got all Clinton-esque, there? No “physical rape” took place. But we all know that the Superior Spider-Man is for all intents and purposes a wannabe rapist. There’s really no way around it. So instead of actually talking about what it would mean to have Doc Ock misrepresent himself to Mary Jane while trying to get in her pants, Dan Slott tries to insinuate that I somehow frequent fan fiction websites that dabble in Spidey porn.

No dice, Dan. And no amount of all caps or emoticons or ‘idiot’ references can hide the fact that unless you’re attacking me from afar I will nail you to the wall.

If Superior Spider-Man is such a hit, why does Dan Slott scour the internet like he was Scott Bakula in Quantum Leap, trying to right the wrongs of “idiots” like me? He wouldn’t, unless he knew that all the sales in the world won’t translate into respect. That’s why he must use ‘conservative’ as a pejorative instead of referring to me by name. That’s why he resorts to ad hominem attacks. That’s why he lashes out. In the end, all he has left is a desperate attempt to rob his critics of their legitimacy, even if it’s through infantile “rants” that end in smiley faces.

Newsflash: It’s not working.

I bought countless issues of Amazing Spider-Man out of sheer morbid curiosity and at times anger before I gave up on Marvel. And there are many others like me out there. Would Dan Slott like me to run through some of the incredibly crappy titles from the early 90’s that sold more copies than the “Top 10” books in 2013, just to show you how far the industry has fallen?

The real measure of “success” for any creator is what the fans will say about him after he’s gone. And Dan Slott knows that he is seen by throngs of fans as a petulant man-boy who doesn’t take criticism well. Taking to Twitter to call people “idiots” instead of having a measured discussion doesn’t help his case any.

If you thought something was so stupid you had to vent about it on Twitter, wouldn’t you direct your followers to it? Of course. That is, unless you know deep down that the object of your anger is rather nimble and capable of drawing intellectual blood.

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I'm a former Army guy who believes success comes through hard work, honesty, optimism, and perseverance.
I believe seeing yourself as a victim creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. I believe in God. I'm a USC Trojan with an MA in Political Science from American University.

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174 comments

It doesn’t take much to set Slott off, it seems. He’s the one who’s immature, considering how he actively trolls people’s blogs or resorts to childish name-calling…. I’d expect that kind of behavior out of a middle schooler, not an adult.

I think Grant Morrison, whom I’m not a fan of apart from his Justice League run in the 1990s, once said that he didn’t read what others had written about him. And in a non-comics example, Christopher Paolini (who wrote the Eragon series) said that he didn’t read reviews of his work because it “messed with his head

It’s just hilarious how he stands on the other side of this digital divide screaming “idiot” instead of walking on over and having a serious discussion. He doesn’t do it because he knows that he’ll be intellectually bloodied by the time it’s over.

I stay on point. I don’t need to resort to name calling. And so, all he’s left with is to try and turn my post into some sort of screed on sales when it was almost completely about his limitations as a story teller due in large part to his ideological bent. That, and how bone headed it was for Marvel to squander the good will of life-long Spider-Man fans like myself and tens-of-thousands of others like me.

My brother weighed in last night. He also flips through Spidey these days and then doesn’t buy it. He said: “I think Mr Slott has bigger problems than “idiot” conservative bloggers; he wrote a boring book. Is the bigger sin turning Spider-Man into someone who no longer espouses his old values or turning him so irrelevant that no one cares?”

What are the actual sales figures these days? IIRC, garnering between 100K-200K a month is considered “good.” But as Doug said, this absolutely pales in comparison to the 90s (which really isn’t saying much, though, as those comics’ quality left much to be desired). But even so, according to Sean Howe’s book on Marvel, in the 70s and 80s many books routinely sold in the millions per month.

With the 90s, it was the ridiculous speculation, cover gimmicks and crossovers that drove sales. In the 70s and 80s, at least, it was stories. Nevertheless, Slott is a victim of the times, so to speak. Hard copy comics are a dying entity, I fear. I wonder how digital sales figure into the overall sales figures.

I think your numbers are correct; “good” is considered 100K-200K. It’s nothing at all like what you’d see in the 90s though, although those comics weren’t exactly treasures. But it’s safe to say that Rob Liefeld in the 1990s outsold Dan Slott today.

And it’s hard to say what exactly the digital sales figures are; Marvel and DC have both refused to release exact numbers. They just keep saying they’re “good,” whatever that means.

But the sad thing is, they’re STILL doing the stupid gimmicks with variants. That’s one of the ways they can slightly pump up sales, or at least it seems like it from my cursory knowledge of the issue. It felt like in the wake of OMD with BND there were always a slew of variants, which collectors would snatch up even though they didn’t give a rip about the story.

And that illustrates yet another problem with comics fans these days… they’ll buy stories because they feel they HAVE to, not because they actually want to or because the story is necessary good. They think these gimmicks will amount to huge dollar signs in the future, but they won’t. The spectator boom proved that. I noticed the whole “compulsive collecting mentality” for the first time back in 2008 when OMD and BMD were first published. I personally knew people who bought it who hated the story, but said they felt they had because they thought it would be worth something someday.

Dan Slott has to whine on CNN and fight with you guys to drum up interest because there is nothing else there. The Main Event guy was right on the mark; these twitter feuds don’t exist if the story is good. Interesting logic by Slott; he says you only have programmed talking points. Does he really think “the vast right wing conspiracy” has taken the time to formulate talking points on Superior Spider-Man? Was “Reaction to Dan Slott” a workshop at CPAC? How egotistical. Could it be fans of all political persuasions aren’t crazy about this book?

You and Main Event don’t enjoy the story and he comes back with sales. Let’s see … remember the Sesame Street “which of the 4 don’t belong?” game as a kid? My four are Jimmy Page, Aretha Franklin, Neil Peart, and Justin Bieber. Three are respected musicians with decades-long career success. I’ll say Bieber doesn’t belong in the others’ league. Then again, Bieber did have more “sales” this past year, so by Slottian logic I guess I’m an idiot, too.

Which brings us to the name calling. So you are an idiot who knows nothing and can’t be reasoned with, yet 5 months later Slott is still trying to justify rape/not rape in his rant to you. If your statements are so idiotic that they deserve no attention why continue to justify? It’s not even a heat of the moment, current argument thing; he’s reminding us all about an argument from December. Hmmm. I guess the idiot’s argument must have traction…..or TRACTION in his world. And I misspoke earlier, his rant wasn’t to you directly, it was actually to the twitterverse- why the Clinton press conference before thousands of people? Again, the idiot hit a nerve.

Honestly, I consider myself fairly liberal and I agree with many of your points about Slott. I had stopped reading spider-man post Civil War/OMD/OMIT. I started picked up reprints of old issues and was enjoying them. I was getting into the run he had around Big Time. And then news of Superior broke.

Slott and Wacker trolled the audience to get a reaction. Instead of honestly admitting they wanted to do an open ended event then posed it as Peter is gone forever. The basic problem is that I am a memory and am not an idiot. Pete’s identity being known – that was also meant to be permanent according to the writers. The clone saga … also meant to be permanent. so, either slot and Wacker have no concept of history, or they are blatant liars, or they are self aggrandizing fools.

The rapey bits are not acceptable. The outright murder and mayhem caused by the impostor is not acceptable. I don’t care if Slott thinks he’s writing Star Wars: empire strikes back. ESB didn’t last 2-3 years and cost 4 dollars and issue. He’s drifting into prolonging this story for far too long. As a limited arc or event I wouldn’t have cared. It might have been interesting in the short term. But, just hanging out waiting for the story to wind down and get back to normal is not entertaining.

I concede that 80k per month, excluding online sales, is very good. However sales are not legacy. Sales are not quality. I think this stinker of an arc relies on how fast and how well it ends. If it ends relatively quickly and gracefully, then it may go down well. It if lingers, then it may eventually sink into clone saga territory.

Honestly, I consider myself fairly liberal and I agree with many of your points about Slott.

When Dan Slott refers to me pejoratively as “conservative blogger” he’s hoping that a negative connotation pops in your mind that is strong enough to get you to outright discount everything I say. The problem is this: His ridiculous editorial decisions transcend ideology. When I write on debt and deficits, I have a very free market approach. When I write on Spider-Man, for the most part it’s been on how utterly wrong it was to kill Peter and replace him with a guy who came within inches of murdering six billion people. Thank you for seeing through Dan Slott’s smoke screens.

I don’t care if Slott thinks he’s writing Star Wars: empire strikes back. ESB didn’t last 2-3 years and cost 4 dollars and issue. He’s drifting into prolonging this story for far too long. As a limited arc or event I wouldn’t have cared. It might have been interesting in the short term.

Well said. There is a place for weird Doc-Ock-with-Spidey-Powers tales in the Marvel Universe, but the execution of this one (no pun intended) has been an insult to anyone who remotely cares about Peter Parker.

It’s a horrible situation…it really is. Marvel’s writers used to pride themselves on being accessible and polite to fans, but this new generation have zero respect for the characters or the fans, they have detatched our heroes from the ever changing landscape of the world rather than be on the pulse of it. They are behind the times, and cater to the lowest common denomenator. Slott is a mark for himself, giddy and high on his perceived “genius” and pleb fanbase, but will his run hold up over time? No, I think not.

It’s rather sad that Marvel actually has to promote a Spider-Man book based on how angry they claim it will make guys like you and me. Imagine if they tried to actually unite fans. Instead of buying frozen yogurt, I would have purchased two comics. There are tens-of-thousands of guys like us, and in the aggregate that adds up to a lot of money.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: When it comes to Spider-Man, Marvel has the strangest business model (i.e., let’s needlessly annoy large numbers of potential customers).

Now even the Italians are saying Dan Slott looks bad. They don’t have kind words for me either (apparently, criticism of Dan Slott is tantamount to being a troll) … but he’s still taken to task. Brush up on your Italian … or use Google translate.

Having read your original post and this article, both which I found be articulate and well-argued by the way, seeing this quote by Dan Slott saying how you were NOW upset that Otto Octavius/Spider-Man took out a crazed gunman who killed over 30 people
in a shooting INSTEAD of letting the police cart him away to prison,” took me aback in two ways. First, as you point out, that’s not what you were upset over and therefore the argument is a straw man; and second, I could be wrong but is Dan Slott seriously saying that Doc Ock killing a man (albeit a mass murdering psychopath) in cold-blood execution style, someone who, at that point in time, was disarmed, wounded and therefore no longer posed any threat whatsoever, seriously make Doc Ock a “hero?” Because if that was his intention for that particular scene in question, then that’s a serious storytelling problem. Then again, it already was problematic given how, based on how it was depicted on the page, some readers weren’t even sure whether or not Massacre was even dead.

Also, I’d be interested in hearing your opinion based on the following comments Slott made in this recent interview to Newsarama: “[Doc Ock’s] trying his best to be a hero, but he’s doing it in a very Doc Ock way. And Doc Ock’s an egotistical, annoying sh*t. It makes him an interesting character. At his core, he’s someone we don’t really think of heroic. But is he any more annoying than [former villain] Hawkeye used to be?

Also, when you look at Doc Ock, he was so much like Peter Parker. Peter Parker, if he didn’t know the lessons of power and responsibility, that teenage nerd would have grown up to be an Otto Octavius nerd, with the same kind of, “I’m going to make them pay.” This is the flip of that. This is Doc Ock getting to go back in time and be as young as Peter Parker, and have force-fed into him this sense of power and responsibility. He has that lesson from Uncle Ben in his core. That was Peter Parker’s parting gift to the world — I’m not going to leave the world a villain, I’m going to leave them a hero. Doc never intended to be on this path, and in his own way he’s very good at it. He’s just doing it differently than Peter would.

Do you see Punisher as a hero? Do you see Wolverine as a hero? If these guys can be heroes, why can’t Doc Ock? Here’s someone as evil as Massacre — if Spider-Man had just captured him and webbed him up, he’d be out six months from now, doing this again. Yeah, sure he was helpless, and his wrist was snapped, and disarmed, but, “If I shoot him in the head, I’ve saved 30 people in the future.” Doc Ock can look at it almost as a math equation, and be very happy with himself, and sleep well at night knowing what he did. For him, that’s power and responsibility.” http://www.newsarama.com/comics/superior-spider-man-9-dan-slott.html

Mike, you’ve got me in a tough spot. This whole interview is just begging to be torn apart, but then Mr. Slott’s drones will accuse me of trying to troll for more blog hits (never mind the fact that less than 1% of my posts have to deal with Spider-Man). I give you Exhibit A (or should I say Exhibit Tenebrous) as it pertains to the lengths one will go to in order to defend the man.

My initial reaction is that it doesn’t matter whether Ock wants to be a hero now, because the rule of law dictates that he must pay for his previous crimes. And if he does that (and we’re not even counting that little incident where he attempted to kill six billion people), he’ll be locked up until he dies. Or, in a sane world, he’d face the death penalty. So Dan Slott can come talk to me about Ock’s redemption after Octavius serves about 5,000 life sentences for his crimes against humanity.

Thanks for pointing me to this post. I’m thinking I might try and knock something out in the near future here. The logic behind what Slott is saying is consistent with the liberal moral relativism I’ve talked about in this blog for quite some time. It’s the whole “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” mentality. It’s dangerous, and if that’s the kind of mindset Slott brings to a Spider-Man book, then we should all be very depressed.

I love how they accuse you of being a troll on Newsarama and say that you’re using “side snark” and “falsifying information.” Ugh. It’s almost as though today’s comics creators are like gods to today’s fanboys and that somehow they are beyond reporach.

I’m okay with the “snark” comment because I was taking a little dig there. A snarky tone isn’t a bad thing in small doses, provided there’s actually something substantive behind it. My underlying point is hard to argue with:

I just got done talking about how I flipped through the books, put them down and bought frozen yogurt instead. If Marvel (and Dan Slott) did not create such ill will through bad editorial decisions and personal attacks, I would have purchased the books — in Lynchburg, Va. I’m sure there are other like me in that town.

Now, apply my actions in that sparsely populated area by the tens-of-thousands of disenchanted Spider-Man fans across the U.S. In the aggregate, if we buy those books, sales jump dramatically. It’s a completely different ball game.

Dan Slott’s drone accuses me of “backpedaling” when I did not such thing. If he would have asked from the get go, I would have explained. Instead, he and Dan Slott went from saying that I was asserting national sales were horrible … then sales in Virginia … and then in Lynchburg. So the scope of what he was accusing me of kept shrinking, and yet I’m backpedaling? Okay. Any rational person looking at that exchange could see who’s been drinking the Kool-Aid, and it’s not me.

But here’s the thing: I write a tactful critique of Dan’s work, and I’m a “troll”. I respectfully defend myself on a blog post centered around me on Newsarama, and I’m accused of trolling! Let me reiterate: Some guy told me I shouldn’t comment on a blog post about … me. How much of a zombie do you have to be to actually say something like that? Unbelievable.

Yeah, I agree. You made some excellent points. Tenebrous is the one isn’t rational, not by any stretch of the imagination… he’s an example of the rabid fanboys who will come to their favorite writers’ defense no matter what. I guess call them Marvel zombies for a reason.

I saw that and debated whether or not to comment. I’m glad he admits for all the world to see that he’s incapable of independent thought. When he meets a liberal who feels the same way about the book as I do, will his head explode?

The liberals in my life are going to be really surprised to find out how hateful I am. All this time they were led to believe that I can have honest, respectful and forthright conversations with people I disagree with, when in reality I hate them. Who knew?!

Thanks for the read, Johnny. I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m sure there are lots of strange things in Mr. Slott’s Twitter feed. Anyone who was really on Stan Lee’s level would never make such a comparison; others would just do it for them.

What Dan doesn’t realize is that DOC OCK IS NO BETTER THAN A MASS MURDERER! Peter Parker died with no integrity. No honor. And now this… Spider-Man was my hero. I live my life the way Stan Lee’s Peter Parker did. Not this. Not Otto Octavius. Not using power to kill. Placing yourself on a special pedestal above the rest of the scumbag criminals. What makes him better. The pot calling the pan black. God Bless Peter Parker. The true, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN.

Thanks for taking the time to read and share your thoughts, Francis. Indeed, Peter is the true Amazing Spider-Man. Don’t let Mr. Slott convince you that everyone “loves” it and that it’s not worth it to make your case in online forums like this or at your local comic shop. Keep hammering away.

Go to the marvel Spider-Man forum, a Professor with the AKA Fuzzball makes him look dumb, then the moderator bans him because Slott can’t defend his point. He attacked Fuzzball since Fuzzball pointed out that he predicts a sales decrease. Fuzz based his facts on sales numbers from a good source then a sample from 7 comic shops based on consumer reaction to the title. Slott tried to bully him and got smacked up. The bias moderator removed many of Fuzzballs posts since he was beating Slott up, then he banned him. Shortly after one of Fuzzballs friends posted that Fuzzball is who he claimed and the moderator banned him too claiming he was Fuzzball (I know for a fact that they were not the same person). If you go agains Slott you will get called names then if you beat him a moderator will ban you.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. Telling, isn’t it? It seems as is nothing has changed over at the Marvel boards in years. They don’t like it when smart guys can go toe-to-toe with them, and so the banning begins…

I find it funny that I am the bad guy and got banned when I was providing statistics and information on statistical analysis yet name calling and twisting facts was fine. Then it was even better that after a person supports me they are accused of being me and banned instantly (and increasing my ban). As for CBR A person I know made a post to share the story to support me since I cannot respond because I was banned from the marvel forum. In all fairness it is an infraction of rule 8 but still I have seen many posts like it and the people were never banned for it. After the posts (it was posted 3 times total and only in threads pertaining to the subject) we were both suddenly banned from CBR.

I am starting to think of it as an honorable thing, someone has to tell the truth and stand up for others.

I feel bad for “DragynWulf.” He’s like the kid in elementary school who was a hall monitor and then he let even that level of power and responsibility go to his head. I’m not sure if you’re inclined to start blogging, but that’s one of the things I like about it; people who are interested in the things like still find the site, and guys like “DragynWulf” can no longer shut me up.

This is one of the posts:
A person posted:
“It was an observation that the majority of his posts were in response to negative comments or to get into a debate that took over 3 or 4 threads that finally you had to get involved in to stop and even ban a person. Since then there have been pretty much zero responses, So I said “it is disappointing if it is only the negative posts that get responded to.”

Like I said an observation that was based on fact followed by a statement of hope that it is not the case!

My response:
“Give him time he may respond, or just disagree with him and you will get a response in seconds. Go to other forums they find this to happen there too.”

My other post:
This was in response to the moderator banning another person claiming it was me:
“Moderator, that was not the same person. I have also contacted some management in Marvel about this. You can ban me if you want but do not ban others for just supporting me.”

I am sorry I had 3 posts:
While I was banned Slott was allowed to cheap shot at me with (this was in response to my statment that sales are decreasing and issue 7 had a slight increase (yet after that it still was down):
“Seriously, don’t you have a class to teach in something? I know I have work to do.

(Quick help for your college lesson plan: When a number goes UP, we call that number “higher.”)

I’m just pointing that out before your next informative lecture. :-)”

I responded with this:
“Thanks for the cheap-shot Slott, but just for the record:

An outlier is an observation that lies an abnormal distance from other values in a random sample from a population. In a sense, this definition leaves it up to the analyst (or a consensus process) to decide what will be considered abnormal. Before abnormal observations can be singled out, it is necessary to characterize normal observations.

You can argue up or down all you want but that is the facts.”

Now only time will see if I am right about what will happen after issue 9.

I love WordPress. Like anything else, you’ll have to fool with it to figure out all the ins-and-outs, but it’s very user friendly. And if you do start blogging and have questions, feel free to ask me any questions. WordPress also has a strong community of bloggers who are always willing to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, I will look into that very soon. I think it would be great since Slott and the moderators like to ban anyone who has a rational response to them.
I could use it for my classes that I teach also!

I have also found this number 212-576-4000.
This number gets you to General information to Marvel, they will then contact Marvel’s legal department. Feel free to call them and tell them how the forum treats you.

Thank you everyone for your support since I asked people to go to the marvel forum there has been several new people and a few others supporting me. I found out that people also called that number and complained about the forum and now my ban was removed.
Remember we are the customers and we can take away support by not purchasing crap and using that money to purchase a “Superior” alternative to the Superior Spider-Man. I might suggest the new Captain Marvel or Hawkeye.

As I said before, unlike “DragynWulf” I don’t just ban people for no apparent reason. I’m perfectly willing to have a civil debate.

I know you’re on top of it, but just tread carefully. I could see how even bringing up my blog would give them some sort of reason to ban you again. They’d say you were “promoting other sites” or something stupid.

Wow Slott is really trying to destroy my credit now, he keeps claiming that I am also someone else. I also think the response that this forum has generated over there is pissing him off. It seems more people are starting accounts and speaking there minds.

As you see he went nuts with attacks. I would love to have a way to prove that the other person was not me but anything I do could be faked so there is really no way for me to prove it. I could make a video but he would just say that it was fake. Notice he attacks and avoided all of the facts that I presented. I think his style is to make lame jokes, use smiles and caps when he knows that he has nothing. It is a little hard to argue against the numbers so he resorts to childish attacks.

The moderator knows it’s not you. The IP address would be the same if you just created a second account. The funny thing is, what Dan Slott is doing is a tactic used by truly desperate men. Again, you should take it as a badge of honor.

I know, I love how he went into childish character attacks.Unfortunately the IP for this guy could be the same he works at the same place and we have the same IP for all of the employees since we are on the same network, but then again he also posts from home which would have a different IP (hmm that is a good point). I find it funny that after a call to management they had to open the accounts (I think the moderator got busted on that one).

Thanks. That was a surgical strike. I notice he responded to someone else saying he doesn’t regret “ONE BIT” (Slottian all-caps grammar rules apply) for his behavior on the boards in that thread. Does that guy ever take any responsibility for anything? It’s embarrassing. He conveniently neglects to mention how his behavior in other threads contributed to the exchanges in that one…

In regards to his other obsession with your alleged “puppet” account: Whether it’s your co-worker or not is meaningless, because you were banned under false pretenses. “Dragynwulf” selectively enforces the rules, and then they wonder why someone would get their friends to defend them? Okay.

Good point, you should see the debate thread, now he says he is done and will not debate. You have a good point to about his “puppet” account fixation. On a good note I have all of this now to share with marvel when I call them.
I would love to see someone else call him on the fake person attack.

I think you may enjoy this people, this is what Slott and the moderator did not want you to see. I have taken the data from the post and put it in a video. This is what started his attack on me. I can even provide a video with a good amount of the debate (I put it on video) unfortunatly some of it was deleted before I could get it.

It just goes to show you how ridiculous the moderation is. If Dan Slott didn’t want to talk to you, he could have ended it at any time. He didn’t, and then you get banned for persistently defending your position. Granted, it takes two to tango, but he’s the creator. What kind of fan would not forcefully defend their position as it pertains to Peter Parker when given a chance to do so with the author who killed him?

If Dan Slott came off as amazingly as he made it seem (i.e., Slott not regretting “ONE BIT” of his behavior) they would have left it all up. They know he looked bad, and so it must go down the Memory Hole. Welcome to 1984, Marvel-style.

Upate: It appears my own comment has been deleted by The Party over at the Marvel boards. Luckily I wrote it in my gmail account before cutting and pasting. Someone please tell what “rule” I broke with the following observation:

I’ve been taking in this whole debate from afar, and what astounds me is why Mr. Slott would expend so much time and energy trying to defuse what he claims is a non-issue. If SSM is so great and so successful, then its success speaks for itself. If he believes that the critics will look upon this era years from now and smile, then the intensity with which he spars with “fuzzball” (and those like him) is unnecessary.

There is a certain amount of responsibility that comes with being the writer of, say, Spider-Man. How a creator comports himself is telling. He must be an ambassador for the book. He should rise above the fray. And while being an ambassador does not necessarily mean you allow people to run roughshod over your creation, it does mean that you should respond with tact and professionalism.

It seems to me that one of the goals of a Spider-Man writer should be to unite as many fans as possible around a direction for the book. You can’t please all the people all of the time, but that doesn’t mean you have to exacerbate the problem by belittling and mocking long-time fans (particularly since many of those customers have spent ungodly amounts of money on Marvel products).

These debates have been extremely telling, but I’m afraid not in the way Mr. Slott has intended.

Apparently, if you tactfully make Dan Slott look bad your comment gets erased over at the Marvel boards. Some things never change.

I am happy to see that you saved that post I did not have time to screen capture that debate. Unfortunately I did not get his last day of going crazy, it would have made a great piece of information to share. Your post was made a great point that he clearly did not want to admit. I have noticed many times that he will ignore the parts that prove him wrong and he tries to twist the words and lie to defend himself.
I will say that I really enjoyed how he kept trying to attack me yet he never really defended his position. I am looking forward to seeing what happens to sales after issue 9. I could be wrong and I admitted that but he still was very offended that I would even post data supporting that sales may not have been as good as he has claimed. I find it very interesting that the whole thing started out because I responded to one of HIS posts that his statement about sales was misleading and provided PROOF (caps used here for Slott).
His reaction reminded me of the altercation that he had with the Main Event:
1) Start a fight
2) Get beat
3) Start making things up
4) Get beat more
5) Run away

And that’s the thing — he’ll search out people to argue with or root around the internet looking to find something that will upset him. And then, if he doesn’t respond directly to the person, he’ll vent on his Twitter account about the “crazy” critics so his Slottian disciples will shower him with praise. It’s really quite bizarre.

He picked a fight with The Main Event and then got intellectually body slammed. He decided to mix it up with you, and then instead of making his case and walking away he decided to attack your job and make all sorts of condescending remarks that were totally uncalled for. I read your posts and at some point you were essentially like, “Here’s my interpretation of the numbers. I could be wrong. Let’s sit back and see what happens,” and he couldn’t accept that. He had to keep jabbing at you to try and discredit you. And when you wouldn’t back down you were the one who was banned.

As a creator, at some point you just have to salute and walk away. As I said, if SSM is as great as Slott claims, there is no need for the personal attacks he’s so fond of.

This was the post that started it all and it will show how silly Slot was:
“I think we may see a sales decline soon, (Slott I can argue stats too if you like, I teach college stats). Here is my Statistical inference: Many readers may have thought that this Doc Oc as Spider-man would not last long so they will stick it out. Now after issue 9 it may change. Also this run has had a lot of publicity (more than normal).”

“I have stuck this out to this point but now after issue #9 I have decided to cancel my subscription.”

Slott tried to say the data was wrong yet I was given the data source from an insider that said it was very accurate. Slott just wants to make people believe sales are better than they actually are. For example when an advertisement says “hit show”, if it was a hit why did it get cancelled next week?

I was then told by the moderator that I cannot use sales estimates, this is from the moderator:
“You can not use “estimates” with data and claim that they are “sales figures” because they are not sales figures, but only what someone else has claimed are indeed sales figures. You also can’t go from site to site using google to gather “data” on sales figures because all you can do it pick the numbers you want to use. That is not gathering data at all, but gathering misinformationand passing it off as “data.” The sale figures are always kept from the public for nearly everything sold. I beleive it is shared with shareholders, but I am not sure because I am not a shareholder to confirm it. I also do know it is not shared with the public stockholders.”

A few things here, first off the data was verified by a reliable source (and I have the email to prove it). Second I did display several titles to make a fair comparison, which should not have even been an issue because Slott claims that Superior Spider-Man is performing the best. I might also add that I do own some Disney stock (only 100 shares) and if you go to a stockholder meeting you can ask for this information.

Slott posted (spelling error included)
“Out of ALL the books that Marvel has relaunched– and have been out for four months or more (getting past their initial 1st and 2nd issue bumps), SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN is the best performing title.”

“Find me ONE title that disproves that. You can’t”

Well Slott it looks like I did! But then the data disappeared from the forum (you can see it in the video I posted here).
Slott then went off on a tangent about issue 7 having an increase in sales and that makes me wrong. Mind you that just one issues sales does not stop a trend (my video proves this also).

Let’s also look at some of the conspiracy here:
The moderator posted (this was in the same post where he tried to say the data was not valid):
“And really… you are gonna complain about being fair just because YOUR post was deleted for posting images too large? That is no better than “well he started it first” or remarks just like it. If you see a post that you believe breaks the guidelines, then flag it or bring it to the attention of a Moderator. I can not see everything posted. I have a life outside of these forums just like you and everyone else does. But don’t start or engage in converstation with him, be disrespecful and demand things from him, then complain that he is being rude to you when you are being rude yourself. If you have anything else to say about this, then PM me.

So my post was too large? Then why was the new smaller post the fit the rules deleted too? Also how was my post offensive? Just to test my theory I did send the moderator a PM after Slott came after me again for an innocent post in another thread. In response to a forum member that dislikes Superior-Spider-Man I made a post that stated that I find that most people will try a book for a while and if they do not like it they will stop reading it. I then suggested that they should consider Hawkeye or Captain Marvel. Slott went on the attack and I sent the moderator a PM, what do you think happened…I was banned.
Looking at the facts who was “disrespecful” (a little pun at the moderator in the forum). Why was I banned?
Once again thank you for letting me share this with others here!

I am working behind the scenes sending personal emails to others there telling them about the moderation bias. Fuzzball also sent me the proof he has for his data and I am sharing that also since he is banned for no reason except making Slott look foolish.

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. Indeed, Dan Slott has a choice to reply to criticism of the book with tact and professionalism, or to turn towards personal attacks. For whatever reason, it seems that his preferred option is the latter.

Now the moderator is making crap up in PMs to people to make Fuzzball look bad. He said Fuzzball broke the rules and attacked Slott when the truth is that Fuzzball posted in response to Slotts attacks and Fuzzball has a video of the screen shots to prove it. I think he may post it to share with others so that people can see the bull crap that this moderator is pulling.

You can see here that Slott attacked Fuzzball both times and Fuzzball was banned each time. This also proves that the moderator was not telling the truth when he was telling others that Fuzzball attacked Slott, you can see it was the other way around. Unfortunately the moderator removed some of the posts where Slott really went off the deep end with attacks. Fuzzball did fire back with his own but they were in response to many cheap attacks sadly he was unable to get them them captured for the video. Clearly it is okay for Slott to attack forum members but members are not allowed to respond.
The moderator should consider this before posting messages to others making lies about forum members. The truth is out there Dragynwulf and you were caught!

Slott starts the attack after he is shown that his sales are not as good as he claims:

Fuzzball banned the second time after calling Slott out and Slott attacked him:

I am not openly stating “Hey, I’m Doug” because I don’t want it to make explicitly about me. I’d rather concentrate on the arguments at hand… Here is my response (in case it gets deleted):

“This is exactly why soldiers from WWII from both US and Japan are friends today, beause they are not the ones that wanted each other to die, but because they had a job to do that involved the killing of other soldiers from another nation that we or they were at war with. Yet the blogger doesn’t care and wants to make you and everyone else think that EVERY person from North Korea is evil and needs to die and shouldn’t be saved by a hero,” (DragynWulf).

I would tactfully suggest you be a little more careful when you make assertions as to what someone does or does not care about when it comes to issues of life or death, war and peace. Do you know “the blogger”? A quick perusal of his blog reveals he is a military veteran. Can you read minds? I don’t think so. I have to assume that if the same sort of tactic was said about you as the moderator I wouldn’t last long around here…

I hate to break it to you, but North Korea’s nuke threats did not happen in a vaccuum. It appears you’ve forgotton about “The Forgotton War” and the decades of tyranny that have followed since then. … Regardless, I recommend you read “Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West.” It might change your mind about how a character like Peter Parker should have responded during that situation.

In terms of whether or not Spider-Man had time to joke in the hours before 6 billion people were at risk of being incinerated, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I have neither the time nor the energy to go panel by panel to show how wrong you are. I’m confident that many of those who go back and read the story arc will see Peter’s response to Silver Sable as awkward (and that’s putting it kindly).

Let’s make this dovetail back with Super Spider-Man, shall we? Doctor Octopus was a man with evil in his heart that exceeded even the likes of Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un. And now he has taken up shop in the body of Peter Parker. That is wrong on countless levels. Does that mean that interesting stories can’t be explored? Of course not. But should Dan Slott have gone there? I would say the answer is “no.”

Want to have Doc Ock redeem himself? Go for it. But don’t do it by killing off Peter Parker in the way it happened (twice), and don’t rub it in my face via promotional spots that say I’ll be angrier than I was for ASM #700.

Personally, I’d like to see Doc Ock find the memories of the marriage in Peter’s head and break Mephisto’s “deal” once and for all. He could redeem himself on some level by reuniting Peter with his soul mate. It would then make Ock an enemy of Mephisto. And that, my friends, would open up all sorts of interesting possibilities. We could even have an issue in the future where Spider-Man and Ock have to work together to defeat Mephisto’s attempts at revenge…

No need to thank me, Marvel. Just give me Peter back and write good stories.

I understand that you want to keep the debate on target, I also think it proves that the moderator did not do much research before responding. I find it shows the moderators bias or ignorance (or both) that he thinks the North Korea threat issue is new. I also find it funny how he is using Slott capitalization techniques while making cheap attacks.

Well what do you know, It appears that my prediction has been proving true! Issue 9 had an increase in sales followed by another decline with issue 10 which has sold less than issue 8. Now the next few months should be even more telling about the future of this book.

Thought you might like to see this: Dan Slott now says that I am “a bad person.” Yes, according to Dan Slott I am on par with real life dictators and despots at the deepest of levels. His moral relativism has warped his brain so much that he can’t even tell the difference between someone who disagrees with him and someone who really is a “bad” person.

I find it even more interesting if the slow downward trend continues as I predicted. I believe issue 11 will be even more telling. The numbers I have collected indicate that people are slowly leaving the book as they are tired of Peter missing from the title. As I stated I could be wrong but so far my data seems to be proving true….hmmm I wonder if Slott will stay quiet now?

The CBR forum is the Slott and Wak support group, I am surprised you did not get banned from there yet. I got a temporary ban once because I mentioned that Slott was getting beaten in a debate in another forum. They called it spam even thought it was on the same topic as the thread.
I am not a fan of that forum. They are clearly afraid to have any anti Marvel posts, I would guess it is because they are afraid they will pull ads.
It seems that they really do not want any posts other than I love the book, they are missing a great opportunity to find all potential feedback. I also find it sad that they cannot defend a post all they do is make personal attacks. This is a common tactic from a person who knows that they cannot win based on fact.

Yes. I won’t be going back there anytime soon. They’re infantile beyond belief. It’s like they created a website that was completely geared towards stroking their egos. It’s weird. I can’t believe that individuals with that much clout at Marvel act like that.

I will say that acting that way does not help create a good image. One day it will bite them in the hind end. They represent the company in a bad way. Stan Lee would never act like that, respect is earned and Slott and company have a long way to go before earning any respect.

Slott has no asked the moderator to close the thread. Telling. The mod couldn’t ban me because I was respectful. I handled myself with restraint and tact. And so, Dan Slott moves to have the thread closed.

I am not surprised; he will start crap and then when he can’t win he runs. I love how he resorts to silly and rude comments and tries to blame others for retaliating the same way. Slott is a stain in the underwear of life.
Also how would I be able (if possible) to send you an e-mail?

I want to point out that Slott also feels that he always needs one last cheap shot before he asks to have a debate closed. What a coward. “I will call you a name and run”. I would call marvel and complain about the lack of professionalism from their staff (many have). The more people that address this issue the better. When I cancelled Superior Spider-man I told them why, I will not spend money to support a person that acts like that to their customers.
Notice he will talk bad about you only in places he can control. When he was confronted in a forum that did not cater to him he ran after they beat his senseless comments into the ground with common sense.

Dragynwulf and Slott did the same thing to me. Somehow the moderator always left one last rude comment of Slotts up. Slott is a real class act. I still like that he never had the courage to challenge me in a fair debate forum.

Something interesting; the crawlspace forum (a place that Slott hates because they did not put up with his crap) is now down. I wonder if Marvel flexed some muscle to get it down. Slott got owned there.

Hmmm. Interesting. I don’t know the whole story on that. I’ve heard random things, but that’s good to know. Isn’t that were he told somebody to “f*** off” and then had to apologize? Oh, Danny Boy. Maybe one day he’ll grow up.

I think that was on CBR (funny with what they let him get away with). I think people on crawlspace called him out on it.

He stated :

“As a guy who turned down a side job this year for a paycheck that would’ve been over a third of his yearly income– BECAUSE it would’ve meant cutting back on his not-so-lucrative comic book writing career– and get in the way of working on his Spider-Man dream job…

…and the guy who slept less than 12 hours over the course of 4 days this week working on a script while he was sick… a guy who finally had to be ORDERED off it by his editor to go see a doctor… and is still in a good deal of pain today…

…this is the first time I think I’ve ever said this to somebody over a comic book message board:

Go fuck yourself.

Seriously.

Go. Fuck. Yourself.”

If it so bad why was he on the forum? Sounds like a silly excuse to me.

Fuzzball you will like this, Slott is now attacking me accusing me of being you in the marvel forum. I think you really got to him pissed when you proved him wrong. I was notified by email that he made a snide remark but it was not there when I looked, I think the moderator pulled it because he wants to protect Slott from being wrong and looking silly again.

My wife reads comics. My wife reads anime. If we both have accounts, wouldn’t it stand to reason that a.) We’d have the same IP address and that b.) We’d sound very similar? Likewise, my brother isn’t a fan of Superior Spider-Man. If we both went to the Marvel boards, would Dan Slott try and play Sherlock Holmes to figure out we both have the same last name? It’s weird.

It’s like: “Dude, just address the arguments and get on with it.” If his case is so solid, it shouldn’t matter who is making it. He should be able to put them to shame. I couldn’t care less if Dan Slott made 20 fake accounts and defended the book. If he came here, which he won’t, I’d go down the list one-by-one disassembling logical fallacies, false premises and smoke screens.

Exactly. Dan Slott obsesses over things like who is whom because it veers the discussion away from the issue at hand — Superior Spider-Man. He likes to personalize it take to legitimacy away from the person questioning his editorial judgment.

Not sure if you have a Twitter account, but you can always use that. Use hashtag #Marvel and #SpiderMan and you can get your message out all day without them able to do a thing to you. You’ll still annoy the heck out of them, but you’re generally out of their reach. (Since they have no shame I’m sure they’d try to flag you as a spammer, even if you weren’t tweeting directly to their accounts.)

Dan Slott is such a waste of space. He spit in all our faces when he did what he did to Peter.

If all he has to bring to the table is shock value and pissing off the long-time fanbase, then he has no business writing the book at all. I live for the day when Peter finally returns and Marvel ditches this jackass.

I recently read an interview where Slott says he intends to stick around for awhile. Not good news. Marvel is letting the architect of this disaster continue to build on a rotten foundation. I don’t foresee things getting better until he’s gone and a new writer with a fresh eye can tackle the problem.

Funny how Slott and the moderator kept telling me how wrong I was yet this proves everything that I said to be true. Average sales are decreasing (not counting issue 1 to keep it more accurate) by 3% per issue. Avengers has a less than 2% decline and the All New X-men only has a 1.3% decline.
Looks like Dan Slott may want to keep his mouth shut next time.

I’ve continued to pick up the book, flip through it to keep up to speed, and then put it back on the shelf so I can save that money. Or, more accurately, use it to supplement my frozen yogurt trips with my wife. What Dan Slott doesn’t get is that had he acted differently towards the fans I’d be buying his book instead of Chocolate and Peanut Butter swirl from Sweet Frog frozen yogurt. There are many, many more like me out there. That’s a ton of missed sales opportunities Marvel brought upon itself. Oh well. It’s their business model. I wish them the best of luck.

If you acted like you had an ounce of sense in your head, us ‘Dan Slott Drones’ might actually think of your remarks as more than snarky drivel. Alas, we’ll just have to settle for pointing and laughing at you. Oops, that’s me being a drone again! Now, back at your daily Yogurt tips with your Wife!

Jason Redfield, I find it interesting how you try to point out someones comments as “snarky drivel” yet that is all your posts consist of. Maybe if you had some sense you could make a post that had substance, but then again I bet your ignorance is bliss.

Douglas, arguing with Dan Slott is like answering “but why?” to a child after every sentence. The debate goes nowhere, and his comics just keep getting worse after every exchange. Take it from me, a battle-worn veteran in this war: the Spider-man comics you knew and loved are dead and gone forever. Just stop following them. Go watch “idiocracy” and you’ll see who the new market audience is for Marvel. The point is: one man can’t make a difference in this case. Fifty thousand readers couldn’t make a difference (that was proven with Brand New Day, where they literally gave away copies to artificially boost sales figures). It’s not about the strength of your arguments or the sincerity of your beliefs or even the depth of your wallet. Slott is going to do whatever he wants to do, and Marvel is going to let him, and no matter how ridiculously stupid his plots are, Stan Lee is always going to say “the stories are all to keep people guessing and keep things interesting.” The only Spider-man comic I would ever pay money for now are vintage ones. Until Steve Ditko releases HIS version of Spider-man (which will never happen – THERE is a man with convictions!) there is no point in reading any newly-released Spider-man books. Yours Truly, Ron Ferraro.

You’re the second person in less than 24 hours to suggest I watch “Idiocracy.” I might have to watch it now…

Regardless, you make some very good points. In fact, you make excellent points. For the most part I steer clear of today’s Spider-Man offerings. I’ve saved a lot of money. But from time to time there are some decisions that are made that motivate me to write something, if only to remind people of how far the title as fallen.

Thank you for writing a blog worth commenting on. I’ve been reading some of your other articles about Detroit, salt, “The Hero” and Ron Perlman; some good reads in there. It makes me miss writing my old newspaper column even more than usual. Still, there is money to be made elsewhere, and that is what demands my time now. If only there were someone who actually paid writers what they are worth, there might be a career in there somewhere. Instead, all we get from publishers these days are cheap hacks who write out of desperation rather than inspiration.

As a final send-off, I’d consider emailing someone higher up the chain. Challenge them to go through the back end and find one instance where you didn’t conduct yourself on par with or better than Dan Slott. Granted, the bar is pretty low when you throw “on par” into the mix, but that’s the point. I’d emphasize that the vast majority of the time you were the one taking the high road.

That sounds like a good idea, I have called and discussed things with some powers that be and I think it could also be helpful for them to hear and see others interactions. Spider I don’t know if I saw every post you made before they were removed but from what I have seen you did not seem to break any rules except for making Slott look foolish.

I have an interesting update and addition to my article that you may enjoy.http://truthwillwin1.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/is-superior-really-superior-does-marketing-always-tell-the-truth/
It compares DC and Marvel Flagship character sales and it also includes another interesting tidbit. Slott used data to support his sales from the same source that he said was not accurate, then he used an article that calculated the results wrong. When I contacted the editor I received a very interesting response. I guess if you want Marvel to advertise on your website you are not allowed to tel the truth if it is negative.

Good stuff, Truthwillwin1. My only suggestion might be to alter your headline to read “Is Superior Spider-Man…” I think over time you’ll get more people to your blog that way. You might even want to consider “Is Dan Slott’s Superior Spider-Man really superior…”

Thanks for the read and comment, Motoflou. Yes, I’ve often wondered why Marvel head honchos have not sat down with him and said, “Okay, this is a business. Due to this, we treat people professionally. If someone says something we don’t like we either a.) ignore it, or b.) react to it in a way that always shows us with our best foot forward.

Thanks, Motoflou. I have a couple of ideas for a new post that are baking in the oven. I might wait until Marvel really hypes a particular issue, though. I think I read that issue 20 was supposed to be significant for some reason. We’ll see.

I love how people are saying “just enjoy the ride!” regarding this disgusting mockery of Peter’s legacy. That’s like saying “Sure, you’re in a car that just driven over a cliff, but just ENJOY THE RIDE.”

It’s suppose to be “quest for redemption” yet, SpOck has shown NO remorse for his past actions: Attempting to overthrow a country for money, building numerous bombs to take over the city and kill innocents, millions of dollars lost due to his crimes, trying to BURN THE PLANET AND STEALING AN INNOCENT MAN’S IDENTITY just because he feared his well-deserved death?? Did he ever try to apologize to Peter for that? No, he goes and hypes his ‘superiority’ while beating people to death and mocking villains for doing the same thing he’s been doing for YEARS…oh, and now he seems to be building his own personal army to control NYC? I don’t remember Peter telling Ock that’s how to redeem himself!

But hey, just ‘enjoy the ride’ and fork over your hard-earned money for a series you don’t like or you’re an ‘idiot’.

Bam. That’s an intellectual uppercut that made contact square on the chin of Marvel, Dan Slott, etc. Excellent point, Mitch. How can a body snatcher be redeemed since he’s … a body snatcher? Every time he does something arguably heroic, the fact remains that he killed Peter Parker and hasn’t paid for it — through the legal system or spiritually.

Eventually this will all come crashing down around Otto. I get it. But the fact remains that Dan Slott has hyped this series as a cool story arc for anyone who loves anti-heroes. Heck, he gave an interview where he asked if Otto was any less annoying that Hawkeye. He asked what the big difference is between Wolverine and Doc Ock. (Really? How morally confused does one have to be to see how ridiculous both questions are?)

Mitch, did you know you’re a ghost? Dan Slott says that guys like you are a figment of my imagination. They don’t exist in any sort of significant numbers that would affect sales. If you and me and everyone like us bought the book with enthusiasm we wouldn’t move the needle much at all. Do you buy that? I don’t.

I think there are many, many Peter Parker fans sitting out. Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to conduct an official study but it’s obvious to fair-minded observers.

At this point, Dan’s just lying. He sees how quickly the sales are dropping and knows that at a certain point he’s going to get fired. When they bring back Amazing spiderman( the TRUE superior) then he knows that he’ll never be accepted by fans. His job is coming to an end, and eventually, he’ll just be known as “the asshole who tried to ruin an iconic American hero”. Peter will return, the sales show the Inferior spiderman won’t last long. The thing that bugs me about what Slott did is that he kills Peter, and then gloats about it. If he was such a fan of Spiderman, then why seem so happy about killing him? Dan then seems to have this childish attitude to whoever dislikes his bullshit , no, it isn’t bullshit, it doesn’t DESERVE to be called bullshit. It’s a mix of every horrible super hero plot ever written. I’m done with the comics, ill just stick to the new movies, hell, I’ll even watch the new Ultimate Spiderman show. It’s better than Dans writing at least.

@The Amazing Spiderman says:
I would not say sales are dropping fast but they are going down each month. I do think that they may rise due to some pushes for example new costume, Spider-man 2099, and now the hype for issue 20 I think it is? The shock marketing should boost sales or at least slow the decline. That is one of the issues I have with this book it is not good writing it is shock writing. When the hype fades sales will follow. Look at how well other books are doing in comparison without all of the marketing hype that is rather telling.

keep up the good work everyone… Glad to read the posts. I’m an old school fan and think this modern stuff sucks… Bring back PP and fire Slott. In fact, maybe they can just create an alternate #700 and redo the whole fucking thing…. consign “superior” to the shit hole where it belongs.

Allow me to echo the others on IDIOCRACY. Not only is it profound, it’s – and this is much more important – profoundly hilarious. You’ll finish your second or third viewing with half-a-hundred new favorite scenes, and quotable quotes by the bushel.

My only other comment is that I continue to be astounded that so many ‘creative types’ continue to commit career seppuku by hanging out a shingle on a public Twitter account. Granted. most of your CTs tend to be insecure narcissists, thus the temptation of curating their very own fan clubs must be overwhelming, but common sense should alert them that (a) this kind of holding court in front of an audience of toadies is ruinous to whatever it is you supposedly do well, and moreover (b) social media – despite all the wonderful things it theoretically could and should be – is toxic in nature and encourages mutual parasitism in people.

We all make grandiose claims about keeping the work and the creator separate, and nobody ever does. But the best shot you’ve got at being judged solely on the merits of your work is if people know little to nothing about you, which is a privilege (or a pain) restricted to the people in your actual life. Now think about the people whose work you once admired until you encountered or were informed of something they said on social media that so offended/irritated/disappointed you that your previous relationship to them, audience to artist, could no longer continue as before. It was now an altered, and often tainted, thing.

I don’t mind theatrical, bombastic entertainers insisting “I am the great and powerful Oz!”, but you can’t demand people pay no attention to the man behind the curtain when you took down that curtain himself and gave everyone you no choice but to see you as you are.

Hey, construct your own “Dead To Me Now Thanks to Twitter” lists; see if I’m lyin’.